Consider three seasons ago, when the valiant Hornets won 39 games despite injured starters missing an astounding 133 contests. Meanwhile, in other cities, there were whispers of teams tanking in efforts to improve chances at drafting Greg Oden or Kevin Durant. But if Warkentien had his way, the Hornets, despite the West’s 10th-best record, still could have made the playoffs. The tankers too.

See, the Nuggets’ vice president of basketball operations has penned a plan, which he is sharing with members of the NBA’s competition committee.

Here it is: In each conference, the top seven teams will make the playoffs, per usual. But after the regular season ends, the remaining teams will all vie for the eighth and final spot in each conference’s postseason. There will be a single-elimination tournament, and the winner has the honor, if you will, of playing the No. 1 seed.

This plan gives postseason hope to all fans. It rewards players who fought back from injuries. It gives the NBA a chance to televise these innovative single-elimination games, which means more revenue. And it makes for better basketball in April.

“Everybody wins — fans win, players win, owners win and hopefully the game of basketball wins,” Warkentien said. “It’s not that this is the answer — it’s a suggestion to spur conversation.”

NBA commissioner David Stern challenged the competition committee to come up with ideas to improve the final month of the NBA season, and this could do just that.

Understandably, there could be consternation. Take the 2007-08 Nuggets. They won 50 games — the first time an eighth seed did so. But with this new system, 50 wins wouldn’t have guaranteed a postseason bid; Denver would have had to first win the single-elimination tournament.

Also, there’s a fear that the tournament winner would be, if you will, the hottest team heading into the playoffs (it’s apples and oranges, but think back to the 2007 Rockies). A hot team could scorch into the first round and knock off the No. 1 seed. If a team is good enough to be No. 1, it should be able to beat any eighth-seeded challenger, right?

But as Warkentien said, this idea is a dialogue-starter. His plan is to make this an agenda item for the competition committee, which tackles potential rule changes and format changes, and then the committee could ultimately make a recommendation to the board of governors (a.k.a. the owners).

“So this is my idea,” Warkentien said. “It’s not end all, be all. But let’s start talking about this in advance for the next collective bargaining agreement. If there’s more revenue, the basketball-related income, midlevels and all that, there’s more money for the players.”

Sixth sense.

Entering this season, Sports Illustrated picked the Nuggets to finish sixth in the Western Conference.

“I can’t imagine how they’ll end up in the sixth spot,” Lakers coach Phil Jackson said before a Lakers-Nuggets preseason game. “They didn’t lose much. We know they’ll miss the 3-point shooting (with Linas Kleiza) and Dahntay Jones as an aggressive and good 20-minute defender out there. I don’t see any way they would slip to sixth.”

Tough schedule.

The Nuggets just completed a doozy of a back-to-back — against Utah and then at Portland. For the season, the Nuggets have 22 back-to-backs, three more than those other two teams, considered Denver’s stiffest competition for the Northwest Division title. Moreover, Denver has two back-to-backs on the upcoming road trip. Coach George Karl could only call the scheduling “interesting.”

Old pals.

Along with Denver’s Ty Lawson, Minnesota’s Jonny Flynn is a scintillating rookie guard. Flynn is friends with Carmelo Anthony. They both went to Syracuse, have the same agent (Leon Rose) and are Jordan Brand athletes. Flynn said he met Melo during the summer heading into his freshman year. Anthony played pickup with the guys and then talked with Flynn and the team in the locker room.

“It was definitely a big moment,” Flynn said. “You don’t see a lot of players of his stature going back to his school and playing pickup. That’s one thing I got from him — stay humble, remember where you come from.”

Spotlight on …

The Portland bench

Last season, the Nuggets soldiered to the Western Conference finals, in part because they had one of the best benches in basketball. This season, the Trail Blazers are a salty pick to win the Northwest Division, in part because, yep, they’ve got a heck of a bench.

About an hour before tipoff for Thursday’s Nuggets game at Portland, Denver coach George Karl said, “Fernandez scares me.”

He meant Rudy Fernandez, and in the fourth quarter, we found out why. With just six points so far that night, the Spanish sharpshooter was splendid, scoring 16 points in the final 12 minutes. He made all three field- goal attempts, including two 3s, and he got to the line eight times, sure enough, making all eight.

But he’s possibly not even the third-best player on their bench. Former Nuggets point guard Andre Miller, the pass-first operator, doesn’t start (for now). Rebound glutton Joel Przybilla always gives Denver fits with his aggressive low-post play; he notched six rebounds in 12 minutes against Denver, while battling foul trouble. And then there’s Travis Outlaw, who has haunted the Nuggets at times in the past with his jump-shooting.

“He’s probably one of the best 10-point quarter guys in basketball,” Karl said of Outlaw, the Nuggets’ J.R. Smith notwithstanding. “He comes off the bench and gets 10 points, sometimes in five minutes.”

Benjamin Hochman was a sports columnist for The Denver Post until August 2015 before leaving for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, his hometown newspaper. Hochman previously worked for the New Orleans Times-Picayune, winner of two Pulitzer Prizes for its Hurricane Katrina coverage. Hochman wrote the Katrina-themed book “Fourth and New Orleans,” published in 2007.

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